The supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) is a government funded program that offers nutrition assistance to eligible, low-income individuals and families. The nutrition assistance may be in the form of an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card that may be used at grocery stores or eligible food stores toward eligible products.
Benefits paid out through SNAP exceed $70 billion per year and are received by over 44 million people in the United States. While an average household collects over $100 in monthly benefits, the amount of SNAP benefits received by a household generally depends on the size, income, and expenses of a given household.
A problem that faces SNAP is fraud. More particularly, benefits under SNAP may be diverted from those low-income families and may often be converted to cash. Fraud may also occur in the administration of SNAP, which may add to the overall costs of the program in addition to the general administrative costs.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0063532 to Loeb et al. is directed to a system for incentivizing healthy food purchasing. More particularly, the system may process food purchase receipts that represent purchases via SNAP. Receipts for SNAP purchases may be identified by the system and additional incentive data/rules may be applicable to such purchases. For example, the incentive rules applicable to SNAP purchases may provide additional incentives to promote cost-effective purchasing habits directed toward healthy eating choices.